


AU Meme: Ander Poul

by thisbluespirit



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Kaldor City
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ficlet, Gen, Memes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 05:44:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12550476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: 10 AU scenarios for Ander Poul (fromRobots of Death), written for Sovay in a Dreamwidth Meme.





	AU Meme: Ander Poul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sovay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sovay/gifts).



**Wild West**  
A death amongst those prospecting for gold wasn’t uncommon, nor even a murder, but this had been deliberate: Chub had been lured to his death, and then poisoned and, in any case, he was not a prospector but a scientist. Poul sighed. 

“This isn’t going to be easy,” he said to the prototype clockwork man who was accompanying him. “And why,” he added under his breath, “am I talking to you? It’s not as if you even truly understand anything but the simplest directions. I don’t know why I had to bring you!”

 

 **Coffee Shop**  
“There’s nothing wrong with the espresso machine!” said Uvanov. “Or the cappuccino machine or any other machine around here that makes any sort of liquid refreshment, hot or cold. That’s ridiculous, and I’m firing Borg if he comes out with any more nonsense like that.”

He and Poul looked inevitably at the espresso machine. It made a distinctly worrying grating and growling sound.

“As you say,” murmured Poul. “Ridiculous.”

 

 **Shapeshifters**  
“You changed,” said Leela. “Can all your people do that?”

“The majority,” Poul brushed down his clothes. “Although most of them think it’s a little undignified – scurrying around in the shape of a rodent or a bird. I find it helps, though. It’s an escape of sorts.”

Leela nodded. “I think I can understand that. I should like to fly like a bird – could I learn to do it?”

“I don’t think it could be learned,” said Poul. Then he smiled. “On the other hand, if anyone _could_ , I daresay it would be you.”

 

 **Fantasy/Fairy Tale**  
“I have said all the correct incantations and fought the monster at the door. I believe you should be free now,” said Leela, releasing Poul from his chains. She gave him a stern look. “Next time, you should be more careful.”

Poul let her help him to his feet. “Yes, very true. It was rather an unpleasant spell, however. I don’t think I’m entirely to blame. And I have an alternative solution.”

“Oh?”

He smiled at her. “How about you stay with me and make sure nothing like that happens again?”

 

 **. . . In SPACE!!**  
Liv had been called to the medbay to attend one of the ship’s few passengers, but by the time she got there, he seemed calm enough.

“Sorry,” he said. Liv checked her passenger list for the name – Ander Poul. “There was an incident with – with one of _them_. I shall be fine now, provided I keep out of their way. It’s good to know there’s a human medtech to hand, though. That makes a change.”

Liv raised an eyebrow. “Oh,” she said. “Okay, but do you think a small vessel like this was really the place for someone with, er, your particular issues?”

He gave her a dark look. “Why do you suppose I’m trying to escape off-world?”

“Right,” said Liv. “Good luck with that, then, sir.”

 

It took a few hops from ship to ship, although with notably less robots as he went, but eventually Poul found somewhere obscure, on the edge of the next galaxy. The person who had mentioned it hadn’t sounded keen, calling it an uncivilised place full of barbarians and farmers, but certainly they hadn’t mentioned robots, or the Company, or this Federation that everyone was talking about in these parts. Yes, Gauda Prime. It would do.

 

 **Apocalypse**  
They tried to hush up the sandminer’s return, empty of its human crew and full of all-too evidently murderous robots, with visible blood on their metallic hands, but it couldn’t be kept secret, not in a place like Kaldor. The end had come – again.

 

 **Schoolfic**  
“It’s always the same,” said Uvanov to Poul as they waited outside the head’s office. “The Founding Families get away with murder, but we so much as raise our voice in class and it’s detentions all round.”

Poul stared at the ceiling. He was only here because he’d walked in the door at the wrong moment – that was to say, about the point that everyone Uvanov had been sneering at that morning lost their patience with him. “Yes, well, next time perhaps you should think before you pick a fight with half the class at once.”

“You would say that. _You’re_ frightened of the soft drinks dispenser!”

 

 **Police/Firefighters/Medical**  
“What do you think?” said Poul, surveying the battered body on the floor. “Not quite the open and shut case that Landerchild would have us believe.”

“The killer could not have been Kiy Uvanov,” said D84. “Two separate witnesses have placed him in a meeting in the Company Headquarters. And the damage was done by a prototype laser gun, which Kiy Uvanov could not have had access to.”

Poul crouched down by the victim. “No. The Company Chairholder set this up himself in order to dispense with his rival. I don’t suppose he wants to know what we think. Damn him.”

He sighed. The eternal problem of being a Company detective in Kaldor. You could get rich quick, or you could wind up dead. Or both. It wasn’t the place for a human and a robot who preferred to get at the truth, that was for certain.

 

 **Supernatural**  
The arrival of the actual undead did not improve Poul’s state of mind…

 

 **Regency**  
“And what,” asked Leela,” is a Bow Street Runner? Is it a vegetable? I believe the Doctor has mentioned something of the kind. He said I should not like them.”

Poul considered the lady before him: she was wearing a conventional enough outfit, even if it was a few years out of date, but it clearly didn’t come naturally to her. He gave a slight smile, putting his hand to his mouth. “ _Not_ a vegetable. But somehow I suspect you would not like them much, no.”

“I like _you_ ,” she said, bristling at being told what she should and shouldn’t like.

“I’m the exception.”


End file.
